In a seemingly deliberate attempt to replicate the Emwazi videos,
the new film, which purports to be a trailer for a longer Isis
propaganda video, focuses on a man with a British accent before
showing the apparent murder of five hostages accused of being UK
spies.

The video has sparked a manhunt that will focus on the accent of
the unknown militant and what can be seen of his face, compared
with what is known about hundreds of suspected British extremists
who have travelled to Syria and Iraq.

The unmasked young boy in the video, who also sounded English,
will be easier to identify, according to Shiraz Maher, an expert
on British jihadis and senior research fellow at the
International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at Kings
College London.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Maher said: “The child
for sure will be identified relatively quickly because it
inconceivable to me, given his age, that he would have been born
out there. He would have been taken over, so someone will
recognise that child and tell us who he is. And of course the
child isn’t wearing a balaclava or a mask.”

Children frequently form a key part of ISIS' propaganda
videos.ISIS

Maher said the use of the child in the video was unusual but not
unprecedented.

He said: “The most surprising thing is the young child at the
end. He does speak in English but that doesn’t necessarily mean
he is from the UK. It is very hard if you watch the video to make
out what he says. You have to a watch it a couple of times to be
clear. We have seen French children in executions so it wouldn’t
be entirely novel, but certainly in the coming weeks, when that
[full] video gets released we will learn more about that.”

The man in the balaclava will take longer to identify, Maher
said. “The main figure in the video does wear a mask so it may
take time to identify him. We saw that with Mohamed Emwazi ... It
took quite some time before he was unveiled as it were.”

Voice recognition software of the often
voice-distorted earlier video messages were used to single out
Enwazi together with traditional intelligence gathering about
known British jihadis.

New vein recognition technology was even reportedly used to
help identify Enwazi after his hands were shown holding a knife
in the hostage murder videos. This will be more difficult in the
new video as the unknown militant is shown pointing a pistol
wearing fingerless gloves.

MI5 and the FBI identified
Mohammed Emwazi as 'Jihadi John' in September
2014.Screenshot

By September 2014, MI5 and the FBI had identified Emwazi as the
knife-wielding killer. But it wasn’t until February 2015
that security sources publicly confirmed his identity.

The voice of the the unknown Jihadi in the new 11-minute video
has been described as having a London accent, but northern or
midlands pronunciation of the word ”Britain” can be heard when it
says: “All people of Britain know that your citizenship is under
our feet and that the Islamic state, our country is here to stay
and we will continue to wage jihad.”